Pages

Sunday, 6 April 2014

My Story

It's been quite a while since I started writing on this blog. And I realised, I haven't actually introduced myself yet.

I am Amy Ng, 黄望绮 (中), a Malaysian, of a Chinese descent and was chinese-educated. I attended a chinese primary school and continued my secondary education in a government school where I still continued my Chinese Language.

Simply put it, Mandarin is a dying language in Malaysia, the education system here is very academic orientated where students often aimed to achieve all As in their secondary school government exam - Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), hence dropping the subject of Mandarin / Chinese language, since it had a low percentage of students scoring high grades in it.

I was brought up in that environment too, typical Chinese background, in which excellence is something we all ought to strive for. Hence, I was always in top classes from primary through secondary school.

I am glad and fortunate enough to be able to share this with you today, as I believe that "one story shared, is one understanding gained".

Being perfectionistic as I was, and partially still am, I had a major breakdown back in 2012, where my grades failed me in that sense, where I was no longer performing above average, no longer comparable at the same level with my peers. It was a huge roadblock for me. I fell drastically into a depression. For a period of time, I stopped my many other activities to try to get back up on my feet again. It was a pretty fast recovery in 2013, despite still having struggles during that year.

It was tough, back then, being a person with not-so-excellent social skills and low self esteem. However, still I thank God for that short episode, which gave me a taste of failure, a taste of great disappointment, a taste of the fact that I am not perfect......

For many years before 2012, I was a very hardworking, confident and determined student. I believe I will succeed in what I want to accomplish as long as I put my best efforts in it. I wouldn't settle for anything less than perfect. There is always a way for me to improve, be better, no matter what.

Those were my beliefs back then.

Because of that experience, I began to see life in another perspective,
- Slow down, you don't need to rush for anything, not tuitions, not the next move, not the future.
- There's more things you can explore that you may miss due to overfocusing on the task at hand.
- You cannot be the person you admire, nor the person next to you. Because you are the unique YOU.
- Adversities, problems, hardships are part and parcel of the journey and experience of LIFE, those are what makes you know how wonderful it is to s.m.i.l.e :) when you manage to go through and overcome them.

I wish to tell you more about how much I have change, but that would be covered in another post.

On the side note, I love to play music (piano, flute, violin and vocal), explore NEW things everyday. I enjoy philosophy, reading, just started trying outmeditation, yogaand some self-help techniques(Anthony Robbins, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy) and of course Psychology. I have a what people may consider as weird hobby of thinking about life's random things -- Why, is my favourite question.

To a certain extent, I think we all have a 'crazy' part of ourselves that we so enjoy and want to let it all out. :) I also believe we can connect with each other with what's common between us, the essential human experiences.

Well, Life's Fun, life's creative and unpredictable. We all may face setbacks at times, but most importantly, enjoy the present moment and don't lose hope!